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Released
1983 · FILM

Silkwood

Nuclear plant worker Karen Silkwood risks her life to expose deadly safety violations at a plutonium facility, battling a ruthless corporation determined to silence her before the contamination spreads.

“On November 13, 1974, Karen Silkwood, an employee of a nuclear facility, left to meet with a reporter from the New York Times. She never got there.”

Directed by
Mike Nichols, Mike Nichols Nm0001566
Written by
Nora Ephron, Alice Arlen
Runtime
131 min
BiographyDramaHistory
Streaming on
  • Hoopla

Synopsis

Karen Silkwood, like many residents of her town, is employed at a local nuclear facility where plutonium is produced. After being exposed to a deadly level of radiation, she encounters corporate inaction and denial. As her condition worsens, her activism intensifies, making her an increasing threat to those in power.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Production Designer
Director of Photography
Writers
Directors

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 21

These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

Craft leads on file

Edited by Sam O SteenShot by Miroslav OndricekScored by Georges DelerueDesigned by Patrizia Von Brandenstein

Box Office

1983 · Box office

✅ Made its money back — grossed 3.6× its budget

Why 2.5×?

Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).

Worldwide gross

$35.6M

Budget$10.0M
Worldwide gross$35.6M
break-even (2.5×)

US & Canada: $35.6M — 100% of worldwide · International: $1K (0%)

Opening weekend: $1.2M — 3% of its US run. It had legs — it kept earning long after opening weekend.

Opening week (7-day): $2.3M — 6% of its US & Canada run.

Peak 257 theaters

Also known as

  • Silkwoodde

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